It is a well known fact that persons who do a lot of reading and writing are far more likely to develop eye problems. Notably a weakness develops that is understood by the layman to be nearsightedness. As the worlds' population has become more academic, the incidence of nearsightedness has become greater and greater. In the United States today, about 40% of the population is nearsighted and that number is growing.
Among the beliefs of the layman is the idea that nearsightedness is an inherited weakness, or to some, that nearsightedness is the price you pay for an education. Both are erroneous to a large extent. It rarely is a result of an inherited weakness and it occurs most frequently in those persons who read and write a lot, because they do so improperly.
The eye is truly an amazing organ of the human body. It can focus on near objects, as close as a couple of inches, and on far objects, as far as a couple of miles, and everything in between. It encompasses a field of vision of close to 180.degree. and it rapidly adjusts to movement side to side and near to far. To accomplish these amazing adjustments, literally dozens of muscles are brought into play.
Reading improperly generates a greater stress on the human lens and eye muscles than any other activity. Consider a person typically reading a book that is lying on a flat desk top. The nearest edge of the book will generally be some 7 or 8" away from the readers eyes and the far edge of the book some 15 to 18" away from the eyes. Focusing on close objects is extremely hard on the eye muscles. Anything closer than 14" generates a focusing difficulty that is geometrically progressively more difficult with each inch. Furthermore, as the reader reads up and down the page, page after page, his eyes must focus on the words at the 18" distance down to the 7" distance, back to the 18" distance and on and on. Reading under these conditions induces lens and muscular stress that can, and often does, result in nearsightedness.